The best part is that pretty much every system has some access to third-party lens makers (Sigma, Tokina, Tamron), which just automatically fleshes out everyone's potential lineup. And your same statements apply: Each of the third-parties makes some gems, and some crap, and quite a range in between.

Given the quality of that glass that's not such a bad idea. The scary part is that's likely the single most valuable piece of camera gear I own. It should be in LN category as I've got the box, all the wrappings, and it was gently used when I was shooting film with the N2000.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

JustAnEngineer wrote:Isn't there an adapter that makes the four-thirds lenses fully functional on a micro-four-thirds camera (other than the reduced image circle, of course)?

Just an FYI, FourThirds and MicroFourThirds have the same image circle. Yes there is an adapter (and you keep AF on the majority of lenses and bodies), but CDAF on FourThirds lenses is very slow. I tested out the Zuiko.D 50/2 macro on a m43 body and found it unbearably slow. I wrote off getting said lens, but was surprised when I tried it on an E-5 and found the AF to be respectably fast with PDAF.

Another caveat is that Four Thirds lenses are not very small (despite the reduced image circle relative to APS-C and FF) because of the emphasis on telecentric designs and the long flange back distance of Four Thirds. So they aren't a perfect match for m43 users who picked the system for compactness.

As a long time Pentax user, I can say the only lenses missing are the long (>300mm) primes for wildlife shooting.They have all your other bases covered, if you are an APS-C user.No FF yet, but with the Ricoh takeover, who knows?

Pentax is an interesting system; camera bodies that regularly rival the Big Two in technical quality, lenses with a lot of respect (even if their focal lengths and apertures aren't the nice, predictable figures of Canon and Nikon). I hope Ricoh knows what to do with it; a little shakeup in anything that isn't a mirrorless market would be welcome... and when are they going to start installing Android in these DSLR's?

SPOOFE wrote:Pentax is an interesting system; camera bodies that regularly rival the Big Two in technical quality, lenses with a lot of respect (even if their focal lengths and apertures aren't the nice, predictable figures of Canon and Nikon). I hope Ricoh knows what to do with it; a little shakeup in anything that isn't a mirrorless market would be welcome... and when are they going to start installing Android in these DSLR's?

Right about the time DSLRs suddently begin locking up, app crashing, and rebooting for no reason.

(Okay, I exaggerate, but I really don't see the point. The Canikon firmware works like an appliance, and I assume the Pentax does, as well. I like having an Android smartphone, but it most definitely does NOT work like an appliance.)

I see it as an inevitable and logical result of convergence, and the sort of thing that happens when product generations become reiterative and stale. It's already happening in the P&S market; nothing but a slew of "also-rans" with the occasional gimmick thrown in (like Nikon's little camera with a projector built it; novel, sure, and got lots of free press, but it's still just an odd thing one can, but probably won't, get). Furthermore, look at the technical structure of a camera: Behind the image sensor and the actual "camera" structures (shutter, lens mount, filters, etc.) you have, essentially - processor, local storage, bulk storage. Add an ARM design to the image processor (which only gets cheaper to do as manufacturing tech gets more sophisticated) and some WiFi (also becoming more involved with the photography process as the whole shebang gets more connected; see the tricks the iPhone is renown for) and you essentially have a solid Android platform.

Or something like it, at the very least. I don't know exactly how much it would cost to add that functionality, but you have to figure it's something that can be absorbed into the price of several hundreds to several thousands of dollars worth of device. As for why? I dunno, why do they put out different colors of the same camera? Why do they all boast how many different stupid "scene modes" they have? Why did they tout video capabilities that were obviously hackneyed and sloppy implementations? I expect that someone - probably Olympus or Panasonic, but almost certainly coming from the mirrorless sector - will start the reaction with a very interconnected camera, the sort of thing that Thom Hogan is always going on about. The sort of camera that's hugely flexible and comes with more of an "operating system" than a "menu". It'll have WiFi, maybe if the marketing guys had a real bender the night before they'll throw in a full-on USB port so's you can plug in one of those 3/4G internet doohickies. You'll have crazy options galore with in-camera processing, nowhere near as robust as a proper desktop suite but certainly enough to justify zapping straight to your website, Facebook, Flickr, or whatever crap you want, right as you're shooting it. Or just connected natively with your laptop or tablet (and drive Eye-Fi out of the business in the process).

Anyway, IF somebody gets a camera out with that level of flexibility, interconnectivity, and in-camera customizability... and IF they get it right enough that it creates enough of a splash... why, then everyone will want to get in on it, too. And naturally they'll want to one-up each other. And then some junior exec (soon to be corporate VP) smacks his forehead and says, "Guys! Ever hear of this Google thing?!?"